by R. G. Belsky
What I wound up with was a soft feature about six children who’d been murdered and mysteriously buried together in a small New Hampshire town. I ran my interview with Oscar Robles. I showed footage of the area where the bodies had been uncovered. I talked again about the six missing children found dead there. I concluded it all like this:
ME: Mountainboro, New Hampshire. Someone claimed Lucy Devlin had been spotted there just after her abduction. Years later, the bodies of six other children were found in a grave in this bucolic little New England town. Was there any connection? And what really did happen to Lucy Devlin—and these six children buried here? In the end, we’re left with lots of questions, and precious few answers.
The camera went back to Brett and Dani, who looked slightly confused.
DANI: Thank you, Clare, for that … uh, report.
BRETT: And now onto a brighter side of the news.
DANI: Cats may have nine lives, but you don’t want to spend nine of yours looking for the right pet.
BRETT: We’ll be back with some tips on how to find a feline friend that’s just … well, Purr-fect.
They both laughed uproariously.
* * *
I’d debated about using any of the video I had from the altercation with the bikers at the Rusty Spike. Haussman had managed to get some footage from both inside the bar and outside—including the moment the camera was knocked out of his hands. But in the end, I decided that—no matter how dramatic the incident was—it really had nothing to do with the story. Sure, the bartender had told me about Patrick Devlin visiting there recently. But Devlin had given me a reasonable explanation for that, so it had no real significance.
The story of my incident at the biker bar with Haussman quickly became the biggest topic talked about in the newsroom, though.
“What’s the latest version?” I asked Maggie at one point.
“They say you got jumped on by ten guys and tied down to a pool table. You somehow got loose, grabbed a pool cue and a bicycle chain, and then fought them off. You broke the pool cue over one guy’s head and almost put another one’s eye out swinging the bicycle chain. Then this whole SWAT team of like a hundred cops swooped down and hauled them off to jail.”
“That’s a tad exaggerated.”
“What really happened?”
“There were three of them. They threatened me and Scott inside the bar, then attacked him and grabbed me when we went outside. We would have been in trouble, but a cop showed up and saved us.”
“Still pretty cool,” Maggie said.
“It sounds a lot cooler talking about it than it was at the time. It was actually pretty scary.”
She was right though.
It did sound pretty cool.
And a helluva lot more interesting than anything I was able to go with that evening on the air.
* * *
“How do you think that went?” I asked Jack Faron after the newscast.
“It was a bit weak.”
“I couldn’t use most of my best stuff.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have used any of it.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“The story’s over, Clare.”
He was right, of course. If someone else had done the report I’d just done, I wouldn’t have even put it on the air. There was no real news value to it. I did it because I’d spent all this time going to New Hampshire and because it mattered to me. I was letting my personal feelings and prejudices take precedence over my news judgment. That wasn’t a very good thing to do when you were the news director.
“I’ve given you a lot of leeway on this story,” Faron said. “I knew it was important to you because of your history with the Devlin family and the story. And we got some good stuff out of it. But now I think it’s just time to move on.”
“Sandy Marston is still on the loose. When they catch him and his girlfriend Louise, there could be some big news out of that.”
“So, when that happens, we’ll put it on the air. Okay?”
“You’re saying you want me to drop the whole thing for now?”
“I need you back as my news director, Clare.”
CHAPTER 29
“I’VE HIT A wall with this story,” I told Janet Wood. “I’ve gone everywhere I can think of, I’ve talked to everyone who might know something about Lucy or any of the six bodies in New Hampshire … and I still don’t have any answers to what really happened to Lucy or any of the others.”
“Maybe there are no answers,” Janet said.
“What does that mean?”
“That’s something you told me a couple of times, Clare. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and walk away from a story. You know that as well as I do. In the end, sometimes you simply have to walk away.”
We were sitting at the bar of the Water Club in Manhattan, which overlooks the East River. I’d asked Janet to meet me there after the meeting in Jack Faron’s office. I just needed to talk to someone. I swiveled around on my barstool now and looked out the glass window surrounding the restaurant. You could see the water outside and the lights of Brooklyn and Queens in the distance.
“I like this place,” I said. “Do you want to know why?”
“No bikers at the bar?”
I smiled.
“My first year in New York, when I started working for the Tribune, I won an award from the Newspaper Women’s Association as the best new reporter in the city. There was a big presentation ceremony here. I stood up, made a little speech, and everyone patted me on the back and told me what a great future I had. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Coming to this place and accepting that award. I was still young then, and the future seemed so damn bright to me back then.”
“Hey, let’s not get so maudlin, Clare—I’d say things have worked out pretty well for you.”
“You think?”
“Sure. You had a terrific run as a newspaper reporter, then went on TV. Now you’re a big executive on a New York City station. Not a lot of women have done as much as you, even in this day and age. You’ve come a long way, Clare.”
“Professionally speaking.”
“What else is there?”
“My personal life.”
“Oh, that …”
“Not so good on that front, huh?”
“There’s probably some room for improvement,” Janet said diplomatically.
I signaled the bartender for another drink. I was drinking Amstel Light, mostly because I can drink a lot of beer without getting drunk. Janet was drinking a daiquiri.
“Three marriages, three divorces,” I said. “Three strikes and out. Okay, I just have to admit to myself that I’m not very good with marriage, huh? The funny thing is, though, I always thought I would have had the perfect marriage when I got married the first time. That we’d have perfect babies and live happily ever after. Felt that way about the second and third times I got married, too, believe it or not. Until they fell apart just like my first marriage. Hell, I should have known better. Should have learned that it didn’t work that way from my own parents when I was growing up.”
“They didn’t have a good marriage?”
I’d never talked about my childhood much before, not even with Janet. But I’d had a few drinks, and it was on my mind after everything that had happened.
“My parents were married for like forty years,” I said. “Never cheated on each other, never split up, never even spent a night apart during that entire time. On the surface, their marriage seemed fine—everyone thought they were a happy couple. The reality was it was a big lie. At least for my mother.
“My father never let her do anything. He ran the house like a tyrant, and she took it. He never hit her or anything like that. He abused her in a worse way. She had no life. She’d married him when she was nineteen, and that’s what young girls did then. She never had a chance to express herself or find out anything about herself. My father wouldn’t let her drive a car, go out with friends, even go to the
movies without him. At home, she had to watch the same TV shows as he did.
“One day, when I was sixteen or seventeen and in high school, she came into my room. I could tell she’d been crying. She suddenly told me that the only reason she stayed with him was me. She didn’t want me to come from a broken home, that was very important to her. Then she told me that once I was old enough, I needed to move far from home and get away from him. Go to college, live and work in a different city … whatever it took. She said she wanted me to have a real life, and not wind up like her.
“A few years later, I experienced my father’s wrath firsthand. I did something wrong—something he couldn’t find it in his heart to forgive me for. We had a big falling out. I didn’t speak to him for a couple of years after that. Even at the end, when he was dying, I always thought he was still mad at me. Mad because he couldn’t control me, the way he’d controlled my mother.
“So,” I said, looking down at my Amstel, “I guess you could say I’m not exactly a big fan of the institution of marriage.”
Janet picked up her daiquiri and took a sip. She drank like she did everything else. Precise, well-thought out, always in complete control. I’d never seen Janet drunk. Or out of control at all. Not even a little bit high. She was always so perfect in everything she did.
“Not all marriages are like that,” Janet said.
“Right, some are worse.”
“And some are good.”
“Name one.”
“Okay, mine.”
“That doesn’t count. You’re goddamned perfect, Janet. Everything else about you is perfect, so your marriage must be, too.”
Janet shook her head. “My marriage isn’t perfect, Clare. There’s a lot of things wrong with it. It’s not a fairy tale. You don’t just live happily ever after. But it’s sure better than the alternative.”
“Which is?”
“Being alone like you.”
I didn’t have an answer for that one.
“I’m curious about something,” Janet said. “What did you do that was so bad your father never forgave you?”
“It’s not important.”
“You don’t want to talk about it?”
“Some other time.”
I’d told her too much already.
She asked me about Elliott Grayson. I told her about our meeting at the bar in SoHo, how he had kissed me on the cheek at the end, made the comment that he whispered into my ear about liking my legs—and how he continued to make it clear he was interested in pursuing a more intimate relationship with me than just reporter/politician.
“How do you feel about that?”
“Ambivalent.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good to see you have a definite plan of action.”
“Look, he called me a few times while I was away. He wants to get together again. I’m supposed to get back to him with an answer soon. My only problem is I have no idea what my answer is going to be.”
“Why not go out with him?”
“Just like that?”
“Sure, see what happens.”
“You don’t think it exhibits a certain lack of journalistic integrity on my part?”
“You said your boss was okay with it.”
“Yeah, but I figured you would disapprove.”
“Hey, Elliott Grayson is quite a catch.”
“That’s what everybody keeps telling me.”
CHAPTER 30
“I’M REALLY GLAD you decided to see me tonight,” Grayson said.
“Me, too.”
“For a while there, I wasn’t sure you were going to show up.”
“It was touch and go,” I admitted.
We were sitting in Grayson’s apartment. It was in a high-rise on the Upper East Side, in the East 80s near the East River. Nice apartment, nice location. Of course, he could be living in Washington, DC, pretty soon if the election turned out right for him.
We’d come upstairs after having dinner at the Palm Restaurant in Midtown Manhattan, where I discovered his picture was on the wall along with the other politicians and celebrities that ate there. I was impressed. Afterward, we went to a small café for drinks and dessert. Then he asked me if I wanted to come to his place for some coffee or something to finish the night.
Now, I knew that he wasn’t really talking about coffee. He knew that he wasn’t talking about coffee. He knew that I knew he wasn’t talking about coffee. When a man asks you at the end of a date if you want to come up to his apartment for coffee, he’s really talking about sex. The word coffee is simply a substitute for sex. This is one of the unwritten rules of dating. I knew very well that going up to Elliott Grayson’s apartment for coffee was tantamount to signing a letter of intent that I’d already made up my mind to sleep with the guy.
And so there I was.
Sitting in his living room now.
Drinking coffee, making small talk, and waiting for Elliott Grayson to make his move.
“There’s something I need to say here before whatever is going to happen between us happens,” I said.
“Sure.”
“I realize now that I may have misjudged you.”
“Really?” he said with feigned astonishment.
“I do make mistakes.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“Then why act so surprised?”
“I just didn’t think you admitted them.”
“Yeah, well …”
“Is that why you decided to come back to my place with me tonight?”
“Let me say this my way.”
“Sorry. Go ahead with your apology.”
“It’s not exactly an apology.”
“It sure sounds like an apology.”
“Actually, it’s more like a clarification.”
“Okay.”
“Maybe an apologetic clarification.”
“Whatever you say.”
I took a deep breath and plunged ahead.
“I really did suspect in the beginning that you had something to do with Lucy Devlin’s disappearance. And with those six dead kids in New Hampshire, too. I know it sounds crazy, but I convinced myself that you were hiding something and that the two cases were definitely connected. Maybe you were just too inviting a target. Big-shot prosecutor, big-time Senate candidate—I thought about what a good story it would be if you turned out to be the bad guy here. Somewhere along the line, I lost sight of the actual facts in this story—which I don’t normally do. I’m sorry.”
“See, that was an apology.”
“You’re right, it’s an apology.”
He smiled.
“So, I’m no longer a suspect in your mind for the disappearance of Lucy Devlin?”
“No.”
“Or those six dead children in New Hampshire?”
“No.”
“You don’t suspect me of criminal activity of any kind?”
“No, I wouldn’t be here if I did.”
Grayson made an exaggerated gesture of wiping sweat from his brow. “Whew, that’s a big relief!” he said.
I looked around the room. There was a picture on the end table next to me of him as a young boy. An older man and woman were in the picture with him.
“Your parents?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Are they still alive?”
“No, they’re both dead now,” he said.
“Mine, too.”
I took a sip of my coffee and looked again at the picture.
“How come there’s no Mrs. Grayson for you now?”
“Never found the right woman, I guess.”
“Not yet.”
That’s when he leaned over and kissed me full on the lips. It was a clumsy move and, frankly, a little disappointing from such an important guy. I mean, it reminded me of a guy I dated in high school coming at me in the back seat of the car at the neighborhood drive-in. I guess all guys—young and old, rich and poor, ex
perienced or not—all tend to revert to the same basic instincts at that particular moment.
“I love your lips,” he said as he kissed me.
“Hmmm.”
Another kiss. This one gentler, but somehow more passionate.
“I love your eyes,” he whispered in my ear.
More kisses. This was definitely moving to a new plateau.
“I love your hair,” he was saying now.
“You’re in luck,” I told him. “I’m running a special this week. You get all of them in one package.”
He kept kissing me.
“Do you know what I think we should do?” he asked.
“Debate the issue of public school versus private school spending for the average taxpayer?” I asked as he nibbled on my ear.
“I think we should go into the bedroom and make love.”
I sighed.
“There could be a problem with that,” I said.
“What’s the problem?”
“Oh, there’s these pesky rules about a newswoman sleeping with someone she’s covering on a story.”
“What kind of rules?”
“Journalistic rules.”
“What happens if you break them?”
“That’s kind of a gray area.”
He kissed me again, this time on the neck. I felt a tingle of excitement surge through me.
“Of course, they may not actually be rules,” I said.
“Good.”
Another kiss on the lips, this time deeper and more passionate.
“More like guidelines, really.”
“I see.”
“My boss thinks they probably don’t even apply to you and me in this situation.”
“Your boss sounds like a very perceptive man.”
“Anyway, who’s going to know?”
“I won’t tell.”
“It’ll be our secret.”
We made out for a while more on the couch. Slowly at first, then more and more aggressively when I didn’t stop him.
It’s funny how things work out. Under the right circumstances, Grayson and I might have really worked together. That night could have been the beginning of a long, serious relationship. But instead something happened that changed everything.
